RACISM IN KANT’S ANTHROPOLOGY

Abstract

Immanuel Kant has been credited with much of the foundational thoughts in the evolution of deontology and deontological outlooks. The basic principle of his moral philosophy is that reason is the basis of our status as moral agents. By this, Kant means that to be moral is to be perfectly rational. But in his rather neglected or forgotten works – anthropology and physical geography, Kant had alluded that Africans lack rationality because of their skin colour. This paper therefore argues to the contrary that Africans are rational beings and that race or colour has nothing to do with rationality. Therefore, this paper is an attempt to show that Kant’s Anthropology is racist and so should be reconstructed. It is on this note that the paper concludes that although Kant’s bad claims reflect poorly on his general philosophical aptitude, they do not necessarily mean that all of his claims are wrong or cannot be salvaged.